Anastomosis procedures are required for connecting or re-connecting certain body tissues, e.g., as part of a surgical procedure. The tissues may be part of a body lumen such as a blood vessel, intestinal or other digestive system tissue, or tissues relating to the urinary system. As one example, in a radical prostatectomy, a surgeon removes all or most of a patient's prostate. Because the urethra travels through the prostate immediately before reaching the bladder, the upper part of the urethra is also removed with the surgery. The procedure leaves a severed urethral stump and a severed bladder neck. To restore proper urinary functions, the bladder and the urethra must be reconnected.
Conventionally, a surgeon may execute delicate suturing operations with tiny, fine needles to reconnect these or other anatomical bodies. However, installation of sutures with a needle to connect severed tissues can be a difficult and technique-sensitive task. Many factors can make the task difficult, including a very small amount of tissue to work with (e.g., at the urethral stump and at the bladder neck), and proximal sensitive tissues such as ureters at a bladder and a proximal nerve bundle and sphincter at a urethral stump. These factors result in complicated and delicate suturing procedures that, if not performed properly, could result in complications such as leakage, difficulty in healing or failure to heal, or specific conditions such as incontinence or impotence.
To reduce the risks involved in conventional suturing procedures, anastomosis devices have been developed that include a drainage feature and tissue approximating structures that allow for reconnection of tissues without using traditional sutures. Examples of such anastomosis devices are described, for example, in Applicants' co-pending U.S. patent applications having Ser. No. 10/646,383, filed Aug. 21, 2003, entitled “Anastomosis Device and Related Methods”; Ser. No. 10/919,545, filed Aug. 16, 2004, entitled “Anastomosis Device and Related Methods”; and Ser. No. 10/919,775 filed Aug. 16, 2004, entitled “Anastomosis Device and Related Methods”, all of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. These anastomosis devices advantageously use tissue approximating structures to reconnect severed tissues during anastomosis procedures, which can both reduce the risks during the surgical procedure and also provide a significant reduction in the amount of time required to perform certain anastomosis procedures.
The tissue approximating structures can be activated by a number of different actuation mechanisms that the surgeon can use to extend and retract the tissue approximating structures relative to adjacent tissue structures, as desired. There is a need, however, to provide an actuation mechanism that is easy for the surgeon to operate, but that can be locked out to prevent or minimize inadvertent movement of the tissue approximating structures.